Cloak of Silence

Piece for an art challenge. "Cloak - Mantel des Schweigens" became a musketeer-type fencer on a bloody path. I am working on my palettes, trying to limit them for a higher visual impact. I was thinking to make it look like a comic cover. Getting the skull pattern onto the cloak was terrible; I drew the pattern first and then warped it into place, which took for-bloody-ever to get right.

The challenge:
I absent-mindedly complained to my significant other that I missed doing challenges because I hadn't gotten around to any in '23. He was happy to provide me with a multi-lingual list of prompts the likes of which I hadn't seen before and gave me a schedule until the end of year I couldn't possibly keep - who has time for art during the winter holidays when there are games that need playing and way too much food to think creatively? But I went on regardless.
I decided before that I wanted to start working with a more reduced and clearer style than my usual paintings; I would love to get into editorial illustrations. I worked in Photoshop, Painter, and Rebelle; leaving out trad tools to speed things up.